The Fourth Generation Grows Up: The Comtemporary American Jewish Community

Publication Date: March 1981

Publisher:

Author(s): Chaim I. Waxman

Research Area: Population and demographics; Social conditions

Keywords: American Jews; Demography

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

In Annals, AAPSS, 454, 70-85. Because there are no religious questions conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census, much of the data on the demographic patterns of Jewish-Americans comes from more limited studies of local communities. An examination of the major studies conducted during the 1950's and early 1960's might have led one to predict a gradual but steady process leading to the almost total assimilation of America's Jews into the larger society. However, a number of major events occurred in the second half of the 1960's and early 1970's that may have altered that process. This article examines recent trends in anti-Semitism and a series of contemporary American Jewish social patterns, including size, geographic distribution, occupation, education, income, political attitudes and behavior, relationship to the state of Israel, intermarriage, and denominational life, from which several significant but divergent trends emerge.